Is this the End?

TREASURE

Arriving in the Elemental Chaos, Rinya suddenly realized where the Blood Chaos had come from and how Sarshan/Deviir had gotten it. The group fought their way into the trapped and crumbling tower, finally making it to the roof and the final showdown with Sarshan, but is this the end?

The Outsiders stepped into a linked portal underneath the Ever-Tree, and suddenly found themselves in the Elemental Chaos, surrounded by Blood Chaos and sweltering heat.

As the group looked around them, they saw a large black tower to the south, and off in the distance of space floated a large city. Elarinya recognized the city as the Efreet City of Brass and that this tower had once belonged to an Efreet Mage known as Djamela. Through her travels some years ago, she had been contacted by Djamela to do a job. When her dangerous research saw her driven from the City of Brass, Djamela relocated to this remote location to continue her work. The monolithic tower that dominates the island was raised by her hand, and filled with traps and conjured creatures to defend against intrusion. Djamela’s passion was the study of raw chaos. The mage was particularly interested in the mutability of the matter of the Elemental Chaos, and sought to harness the innate chaotic quality of such matter to effect its controlled change.

Through her contacts, Rinya had heard that Djamela’s enemies had eventually found her, and the efreet mage was slain. In the aftermath, the golems and spectral defenders that Djamela had conjured were left to run free, preventing others from continuing Djamela’s research.

As she was explaining this to her companions, suddenly everything that they had seen made sense. When they were in Umbraforge, they had seen Blood Chaos spewing through a rift from the Elemental Chaos in the side of the volcano, and Sarshan had been studying it’s mutagenic properties. They had fought the mutated, two-headed boar monster outside his tower. This must have been where Devir had been introduced to the element. They had seen evidence of Djamela’s experiments in the mines of Karak where the congealed red-stone Blood Chaos had driven the dwarves mad. They had also encountered a portal to the Elemental Chaos there, and some of Djamela’s creatures. Somehow, Devir had found Djamela’s tower and her research and was now trying to use it to destroy the Rethild Vale.

As they were discussing that, Damaia and Vylify were studying the dikes around the island, which were supposed to be shored up with magic. As they watched, something was drawing from the rune’s magic and the dikes were weakening, threatening to allow the Blood Chaos to flood the island and the tower. Once Rinya was done, and they’d told the group, they all wanted to make for the tower with all haste, but enemies stood in their way, not to mention that they had to cross the magma on floating earthbergs. On the far side of the lava sea, stood two Shadar-Kai Witches, one of which was very familiar. The light-skinned witch called to her Eladrin lover, and he was disappointed to recognize Leena who had beaten him in a dual in the Shadowfell. The scorned woman attacked the artificer without hesitation. During the fighting, the dragonborn, Searynox discovered that his frost breath could freeze the lava for a short time, no matter which earthberg Vylify stepped on, always seemed to move in the opposite direction he wanted to go, and Lyris and Damaia released their pent up frustration on the enemies, until a dying duergar blasted the whole group, dropping the rogue into the lava, doing serious damage. When the dark-dwarf died, Rinya took her rage out on Leena, finishing her off with an arrow to the head.

Rinya takes care of Vylify’s Ex!

Once the impediments had been defeated, the group made their way to safe ground, and up the huge stairway leading up to the 200 foot tall tower. As they climbed the stairs, the island under them shuddered, reminding them that time was stacked against them. Rinya also warned them again that the tower would more than likely be trapped against intruders and to be on their guard.

The stairs led up to huge double doors, which opened up to the inside of the tower. Stairs and walkways led down to lower levels, and up to a portal to other levels in the tower. Looking down, they could see that the Blood Chaos had already started filling the lower levels of the tower.

My Lego version of this room, so they could play on multiple levels as prescribed.

It seemed that Sarshan had left behind some defenders to delay the Outsider’s progress. Before they could fully attack, the group rushed the defenders, quickly working to take them down. As they fought on, Lyris suddenly realized that the level of the Blood Chaos was quickly rising (or maybe the island and the tower were sinking), and if they didn’t hurry, the lower level needed to reach the portal would soon be covered with magma. As the fastest, the ranger left her companions to distract the enemies while she made a dash for the level with the portal. Even with her increased speed, she was barely able to make it before the 15’ platform was covered in lava. As she climbed the burning ladder, she found that her allies had dispensed of their enemies. She threw a rope across the deadly chasm with a grappling hook, and once attached, the group was able to make their way across the rope to safety. The gods seemed to be protecting the group, even Damaia who usually struggled with athletic skills like this, made it across without problems, much to everyone’s surprise.

The mages set to work on studying the linked portal and found that it had been keyed to take them to top floor of the tower, thus bypassing all of the traps and guardians. Not willing spurn a gift, the warlock activated the portal.

When the blue flash of light faded, the Outsiders found the top of the tower guarded by Githyanki thugs, warriors and Mindslicer. On the far side of the tower, a sphere of translucent force protected three figures: Sarshan and two shadar-kai bodyguards. However, the scars that the arms dealer had born when they had seen him in Umbraforge paled in comparison to his current state. His skin seethed and bubbled as tendrils of blood chaos erupted from open sores on his face and hands. Within the protective force sphere, he was working intently over a teleportation circle, attempting to activate its power.

The thugs and warriors used their telekinetic powers to harry the allies, while the Mindslicer dropped explosions in their midst. As soon as they could, the sisters made their way over and started attacking the forcefield, hoping to find some way to get at their brother inside. Devir taunted them with snide comments while he continued to draw runes on the ground.

The Githyanki used their mental powers to move the group around, and Damaia quickly got tired of being pushed around.

As the Githyanki defenders fell one by one, with the Mindslicer getting thrown over the edge of the tower by Damaia who had transformed into a giant fire monster, the group joined the elf sisters in attacking Sarshan’s shield. He sent the two shadar-kai out to delay them, but they didn’t last long against the combined might of the Outsiders. Once the last of his guards had fallen, Devir saw no other choice than to face them himself.

As the forcefield fell, Devir brought his Blood Chaos covered hands together, a blast of the caustic liquid slammed into the group, knocking them back and slowing them down. Undaunted, the group fought on, throwing everything they had been saving up to this point at their nemesis. High level powers, healing, and critical strikes struck both sides of the combat. Unbeknownst to the Tiefling, the cursed magma had been slowly seeping into her Magma form, until her will power could no longer hold it off, and she melted into a puddle of goo. As one of the defenders fell, Devir took heart and blasted the rest of the group with more of the Blood Chaos, trying to curse them all. Enraged as they watched their brother hurting more people close to them, Rinya and Lyris went all out, attacking their brother, taking advantage of any weakness that he showed. The next to fall to the chaos curse was Searinox, who went down healing Rinya and joined Damaia as a puddle of goo. That was the final straw, and with the last of their energy, Vylify, Lyris, and Rinya struck Devir at the same time, taking him down. As he crumpled to the floor, his will power weakened and the Blood Chaos began to consume him in turn. With his last breath, he was able to stutter that he was sorry for the Chaos that he had caused, but he was only the tip of the iceberg, there were greater powers above him. But before he could say more, his flesh turned to ash and melted away, leaving only the magical helmet artifact that had begun all of this; the Helm of Madmans Blood. Lyris dropped to her knees, her strength spent, Rinya snatched up the Helm and as it tried to assert it’s will over hers, she quickly wrapped it in her cloak so she wouldn’t be touching it. Vylify checked on their companions made goo, and after some study came to the sad conclusion that he knew no rituals to return them to their natural forms.

As they were struggling with a win, that didn’t feel much like one, the tower beneath them shuddered, reminding them that it was slowly sinking into the lava around them. The artificer ran over to the Portal which had brought them here, and began redrawing the runes around the circle. Luckily, he had jotted down the rune sequence for the portal beneath Sage Falrinth’s tower, and as Djamela’s tower began to sink in earnest, he activated the portal and the group teleported to safety.

Back in the Mottled Tower, there was much rejoicing that the flow of Blood Chaos had been stemmed, and no one had actually died in the village. Sage Falrinth luckily knew the Remove Affliction ritual and was able to restore Damaia and Searinox to their original humanoid forms. With the village saved, the Freeriders protected, the group was then able to return to Overlook and to the Council of Elders. With the rest of the group resting in town, the Elf sisters took a portal back to the High Forest in Luruar so they could take the Helm to their mother and announce the death of their brother to their family. Peace settled on the group for a short while, but something was bubbling just under the surface, waiting for a chance to boil over….

FINDANDSTOPSARSHAN/DEVIRSource: Council of Elders/Elarinya and Lyris’ familyTime Limit: As quickly as possibleStatus: COMPLETED
Elder Stonefist asked the PC’s to find out where the arms shipments were coming from and to stop them.Devir and his twin brother discovered the Helm of the Madman’s Blood. The artifact took hold of Devir, who killed his twin and disappeared. To stop the artifact and Devir from fomenting more chaos, Rinya has been commanded to find and stop him.Reward: 3000 XP